March is Women's History Month - Celebrate Women of
Achievement and Herstory - Episode #11 for observance
of Women's History Month
By Irene Stuber
On June 3, 1917, an Army review board -revoked_ the
Congressional Medal of Honor award claimed by Dr. Mary
Edwards Walker for her Civil War treatment of the wounded in
hospitals and on the battlefield.
Walker's revocation was among more than 100 as Congress
sought to upgrade the requirements for the medal. (The Kearney
medal was actually the bravery medal during the Civil War.)
Many said Walker did not deserve the high honor and
further claimed that there was no existing proof that she had
actually been awarded it.
By 1917 Walker had aged into a cantankerous old woman
and she refused to give up the medal. She continued to wear it in
sideshows and the like until her death. Under pressure by women's
groups, the Congress restored the medal on June 10, 1977.
What is true about Mary Walker? According to legend,
President Andrew Johnson presented Dr. Mary Edwards Walker
the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor at the personal
recommendation of General Sherman on 11-11-1865. The medal
in those days was often given en masse to entire regiments, and
many doctors received it for just being on duty at a certain place,
which may how Walker got her medal. The Kearney medal was the
one given for bravery during that period; the Congressional medal
was for meritorious service.)
Walker volunteered as a doctor to the Union Army but was
refused an Army doctor's commission because of her sex..
She DID serve officially at times as a volunteer/nurse in
Sherman's army, but then she also acted as a doctor at times.
Walker angered many because she insisted on wearing an Army
uniform - complete with trousers.
Walker was taken prisoner while tending civilians in the
war zone and held four months by the Confederates. Her
Confederate captives thought her mad for her masculine mode of
dress.
After the war she continued wearing trousers and speaking
out about suffrage and dress reform. She found it difficult to make a
living as she became more eccentric and finally became a sideshow
attraction.
She graduated from Syracuse Medical College in New
York in 1855 so she was an accredited physician at the time of the
war but was forbidden to act as one in the Army because of sex
discrimination. She was married for a short period and there are
records of her living with several women.
^ W ^ O^ A ^
In 0001 AD: Roman historian Suetonius states that
Roman women had races at the Capitoline Games which leads
many of today's herstorians to disagree with the past assumptions
regarding women's physical activities in Greece and Rome. The
conventional theory advanced is that the women did nothing at
all - of course, throughout history men didn't think keeping
house, the garden, taking care of children, cooking, canning,
preserving, weaving, spinning, etc., was work either. . . an
opinion held by many even today.
^ W ^ O^ A ^
Another chapter of how life was really like in the "good
old days."
In 1619 an English sea captain advertised in London for
free passage for single women wanting to go to the Virginia
colonies to find husbands.
He received 120 pounds of fine Virginia tobacco from
the men who "purchased" the women upon their arrival. In a
census taken six years later, only six of the 144 women were still
alive.
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